


Soul Mates

by JJPOR



Category: Battlestar Galactica, Battlestar Galactica (1978), Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M, Gen, sex with your AU self?!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2018-01-10 01:31:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1153183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JJPOR/pseuds/JJPOR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lieutenant Starbuck, meet...well, Starbuck...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soul Mates

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written in response to a prompt provided by Livejournal user ravenskyewalker way back in 2009...! Thought this was as good a place as any to share it with a wider audience. ;) Slightly edited/corrected/expanded from the original hastily-written version!

“Well, fellas, it’s been nice,” said the Warrior with the devil-may-care grin and the big Fumarello, “but I’m done toying with you now.” He turned over his cards to a chorus of protests and curses from his fellow gamblers: "Three Up." Grin widening, he reached for the pile of shiny cubits in the middle of the table.

“Not so fast,” said the woman seated opposite, from behind her own haze of Fumarello smoke. She slammed her own hand of cards down, face up for all to see. “Read ‘em and weep, flyboy. Prince High Red.”

The Warrior’s grin faded slowly: “You have _got_ to be felgercarbing me,” he groaned.

“Hey, not my fault you guys play Triad like my frackin’ Great Aunt Minerva,” the woman replied, with a grin of her own. It didn’t touch her eyes; they glittered at him, hard and cold through the smoke.

“Pyramid,” he told her, only patronising her a little bit. “The game’s called Pyramid.”

“Not where I come from,” she shot back.

“And where's that?” he wondered, fascinated in spite of himself, noting her flight suit and glinting dog-tags and thinking he could count the female Warriors he knew of on the fingers of one... “I haven’t seen you around before," he told her, "and, well, you know, the Fleet’s a pretty small place.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” The woman scraped together her winnings and knocked back what was left of her drink, then rose from the table.

“Well, at least tell me what your name is,” he persisted, getting up and following her without really knowing why, while trying to look casual about it.

“They call me Starbuck,” she answered, with another slightly scary grin.

The Warrior was taken aback: “Is that supposed to be some sort of joke?” He frowned, puzzled: “Did Boomer and Jolly put you up to this?”

“Frack you,” she replied, sweetly.

His grin reignited: “In your dreams.”

She laughed at that: “Maybe. Hey, you got any more booze around here, flyboy?”

* * *

Much later:

“Yeah, so this Raider’s on this nugget’s Six, homing in for the kill, right?” She peered blearily at him, sucking on what was left of her Fumarello, as if anxious that he really did follow her.

“Right,” the Warrior agreed, taking the half-empty bottle of Ambrosia from her hand and taking a stiff pull. They were sitting in an abandoned corner of the Blue Squadron bunkroom, and the talk had turned, as it always did when Warriors got drunk together, to the art of killing or being killed.

“Right,” she went on, “so this Toaster, all he can see with his one red eye is this big fat kill staring him in the face; he wants to kill this nugget, wants it so bad, he doesn’t even see me coming up on his Six. _Boom_ ; no more toaster. Target fixation, right? First thing they teach you; always watch your damn Six.”

“Always watch your Six,” the Warrior agreed, sagely.

“He’s dead now,” she added, taking back the bottle. “What was his callsign? Hotshot? Hotrod? Something like that… Anyway, he’s dead. Frackin’ Cylons killed him some other time; I should have saved myself the effort.”

“Yeah,” the man replied, staring off into the far corners of the room, deep in thought.

“So... _Starbuck_ ,” she said, loudly, dragging herself out of her melancholy, "if that really is your name – _your real name_!” She laughed, and not in an entirely friendly way. “What do you do around here apart from drink and play cards and lie about how many Toasters you’ve fragged?”

He thought about it for a moment, and then gave her another, wicked grin: “Well…”

* * *

“Oh my…” Starbuck managed to drag himself upright and immediately wished he hadn’t. “My head feels like someone flew a Battlestar through it,” he protested, falling back onto his bunk.

“Can’t hold your drink?” Starbuck grinned as she finished getting dressed. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“Last night?” He clutched at his head, trying to remember something, anything, through the haze of alcohol. “Did we? I mean, did we…?”

“If you can call it that,” she said.

“And are you…?” He stared at her in confusion for a moment: “Is any of that other stuff you said true? You know, the...weird stuff?”

“That I’m you?” she asked, grinning. “Another version of you, from another place? Well, you know what they say; all of this has happened before, and it’ll all happen again, but I couldn’t tell you what’s true. I’m not sure you’d want to know anyway.”

“I don’t think I would,” he agreed.

“Think about it like this, though,” she added as she turned to leave. “At least you actually got to go frack yourself, like people have always been telling you to do." She seemed to give that some thought before adding: "Although, in your case, I doubt it’s a new experience.”

And with that parting shot, she walked out of his life.

END?


End file.
